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Race And Washington’S Criminal Justice System: 2021 Report To The Washington Supreme Court, Task Force 2.0

Washington Law Review

RACE & WASHINGTON’S CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM:

EDITOR’S NOTE

As Editors-in-Chief of the Washington Law Review, Gonzaga Law Review, and Seattle University Law Review, we represent the flagship legal academic publications of each law school in Washington State. Our publications last joined together to publish the findings of the first Task Force on Race and the Criminal Justice System in 2011/12. A decade later, we are honored to join once again to present the findings of Task Force 2.0. Law journals have enabled generations of legal professionals to introduce, vet, and distribute new ideas, critiques of existing legal structures, and reflections …

The Democratizing Potential Of Algorithms?, Ngozi Okidegbe

Faculty Scholarship

Jurisdictions are increasingly embracing the use of pretrial risk assessment algorithms as a solution to the problem of mass pretrial incarceration. Conversations about the use of pretrial algorithms in legal scholarship have tended to focus on their opacity, determinativeness, reliability, validity, or their (in)ability to reduce high rates of incarceration as well as racial and socioeconomic disparities within the pretrial system. This Article breaks from this tendency, examining these algorithms from a democratization of criminal law perspective. Using this framework, it points out that currently employed algorithms are exclusionary of the viewpoints and values of the racially marginalized communities most …

Focusing Presidential Clemency Decision-Making, Paul J. Larkin Jr.

Buffalo Law Review

The Article II Pardon Clause grants the President authority to award clemency to any offender. The clause contains only two limitations. The President cannot excuse someone from responsibility for a state offense, nor can he prevent Congress from impeaching and removing a federal official. Otherwise, the President’s authority is plenary. The clause authorizes the President to grant clemency as he sees fit, but the clause does not tell him when he should feel that way.

Historically, Presidents have generally used their authority for legitimate reasons, such as freeing someone who was wrongfully convicted, who is suffering under an unduly onerous …

The Use Of Information Technology In The Activities Of Law Enforcement Agencies: A Comparative Legal Analysis, Islamov Muzaffar Rasulovich

ProAcademy

The article considers the use of information technologies in the activities of law enforcement agencies: a comparative legal analysis with such countries as Germany, the USA, Korea, the Russian Federation. The global development of world civilization at the present stage of development of all areas and directions of human activity is determined, first of all, by the effectiveness of its information support. The economic, financial and political life of states, their prosperity and security largely depend on this. The activities of law enforcement agencies are associated with the processing of large volumes of various information, which, in modern conditions, requires …

Extraordinary (Circumstances) Injustice, Melissa Capalbo

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

The box . . . . It’s a small room, so you really don’t move
around a lot. You wake up, and there’s a toilet right next to
your head. You look out the window and you see birds fly-
ing, and that only leads your mind into wanting freedom
more. And since it’s a small room, it makes you think cra-
zy. . . .Right now, I’m five-foot-seven. I grew. I came here
when I was five feet tall.

This is Rikers Island. The 19-year-old boy who shared his story is certainly not alone. Thousands of youth from …

Movement Constitutionalism, Brandon Hasbrouck

Scholarly Articles

The white supremacy at the heart of the American criminal legal system works to control Black, Brown, and poor people through mass incarceration. Poverty and incarceration act in a vicious circle, with reactionaries mounting a desperate defense against any attempt to mitigate economic exploitation or carceral violence. Ending the cycle will require replacing this inequitable system with the life- and liberty-affirming institutions of abolition democracy. The path to abolition democracy is arduous, but abolitionists can press for change through what I coin “movement constitutionalism.” Movement constitutionalism is the process by which grassroots abolitionist movements shift—through demands and in solidarity with …

The Inequity Of Third-Party Bail Practices, Judge Patrick Carroll

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

For many criminal defendants, a common source of bail funds is their own family or friends. Such individuals typically assist in the expectation that if the defendant complies with court orders and satisfies all court appearances, their money will be returned to them. In revenue-motivated court systems, however, bail funds--even when owned by a third party--are often applied to the defendant's fines and court costs, resulting in the effective forfeiture of the friend or relative's money. This Article reviews the processes of third-party bonds, the risk that a third-party bond will be incorrectly identified as the defendant's asset, and the …

Reimagining Public Safety, Brandon Hasbrouck

Scholarly Articles

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, abolitionists were repeatedly asked to explain what they meant by “abolish the police”—the idea so seemingly foreign that its literal meaning evaded interviewers. The narrative rapidly turned to the abolitionists’ secondary proposals, as interviewers quickly jettisoned the idea of literally abolishing the police. What the incredulous journalists failed to see was that abolishing police and prisons is not aimed merely at eliminating the collateral consequences of other social ills. Abolitionists seek to build a society in which policing and incarceration are unnecessary. Rather than a society without a means of protecting public safety, …

The Perils Of Private Prosecutions, Angela J. Davis

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In Against Prosecutors, Bennett Capers proposes that we largely abandon the current system of public prosecutions and return to private prosecutions. His goal is to empower the victims of crime to make decisions currently made by public prosecutors—whether to bring charges, what the charges should be, and how the cases should be resolved.

Professor Capers’ goals are laudable. As he notes, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and the criminal legal system is rife with unwarranted racial disparities. Professor Capers correctly notes that prosecutors play a substantial role in perpetuating these problems. However, his proposed …

Citizen's Arrest And Race, Ira P. Robbins

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

I begin with a mea culpa. In 2016, I published an article about citizen’s arrest. The idea for the article arose in 2014, when a disgruntled Virginia citizen attempted to arrest a law school professor while class was in progress. I set out to research and write a “traditional” law review article. In it, I traced the origins of the doctrine of citizen’s arrest to medieval England, imposing a positive duty on citizens to assist the King in seeking out suspected offenders and detaining them. I observed that the need for citizen’s arrest lessened with the development of organized and …

Against Criminal Law Localism, Brenner M. Fissell

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Keynote Address, Justin Hansford

Seattle University Law Review

Keynote Address by Justin Hansford

As Fires Blaze Through California, Could They Blaze A New Path For Incarcerated Individuals: A Model For Back-End Abolition, Jacquelyn Kelsey Arnold

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

This Note provides a critique on the current system of prison labor through the lens of the California wildfires and the lack of inmate labor due to early release in the wake of COVID-19. This Note provides an overview of the relevant history of the Thirteenth Amendment, contextualizes mass incarceration as a product of the “War on Drugs” in the United States, and consequently, discusses the significant and dramatic expansion of the prison industrial complex and the use of prison labor as a growing source of production labor. It concludes with a recommendation for a provisional back-end abolition model that …

Criminal Procedure: Confessions, Searches, And Seizures, Honorable Barbara Parker Hervey, Carson Guy, Alexander R. Comsudi

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

No-One Receives Psychiatric Treatment In A Squad Car, Judy Ann Clausen, Joanmarie I. Davoli

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article explores tragedies caused by our current system for responding to mental health emergencies: homelessness, institutionalization, criminalization, harm to self, harm to others, and harm by police. In the wake of the George Floyd murder, there has been increased attention on our response to mental health emergencies and an outcry to reduce the role of police. This Article analyzes reforms from California, Colorado, Eugene, Oregon, the federal government, Dallas, and Nebraska. This Article posits that any reform that focuses only on first responders will not fix our system. Harm by police is only one of the tragedies suffered by …

Psychosis, Heat Of Passion, And Diminished Responsibility, E. Lea Johnston, Vincent T. Leahy

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article calls for the creation of a generic partial excuse for diminished rationality from mental disability. Currently, most jurisdictions recognize only one partial excuse: the common law heat-of-passion defense. Empirical research demonstrates that populations with delusions experience similar impairments to decision-making capacities as people confronted with sudden, objectively adequate provocation. Yet, current law affords significant mitigation only to the latter group, which only applies in murder cases. Adoption of the Model Penal Code’s “extreme mental or emotional disturbance” (EMED) defense could extend mitigation to other forms of diminished responsibility. However, examination of jurisdictions’ adoption and utilization of the EMED …

“I Was Just A Kid”: Addressing The Collateral Consequences Of A Juvenile Record On Employment, Lauren Wray

Touro Law Review

There is a common myth that juvenile records are confidential, when in fact only nine states fully prohibit public access to juvenile records. Landlords, employers, and educators in a majority of states may ask questions about a juvenile’s record. Studies have shown that employers are less likely to hire an applicant who has a juvenile delinquency, and that many employers may not be able to differentiate between a juvenile and adult record. This Note reviews the intersectional flaws of the New York juvenile justice system and the New York labor laws. Specifically, it evaluates policies New York has implemented with …

Drug Supervision, Jacob Schuman

Faculty Scholarship

Critics of harsh drug sentencing laws in the United States typically focus on long prison sentences. But the American criminal justice system also inflicts a significant volume of drug-related punishment through community supervision (probation, parole, and supervised release). Over one million people are under supervision due to a drug conviction, and drug activity is among the most common reasons for violations. In an age of “mass supervision,” community supervision is a major form of drug sentencing and drug policy.

In this Article, I analyze the federal system of supervised release as a form of drug policy. Congress created supervised release …

Models Of Bail Reform, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

Bail reform is an urgent topic in the United States and internationally, but what constitutes reform and how to accomplish reform goals is contested. Jails are a modern epicenter of incarceration, with a stunning growth in American jail populations over the past four decades despite declines in both arrests and crime. As many as sixty percent of the half million people currently in jails have not been convicted but are instead detained pretrial. Prior waves of bail reform produced a system largely reliant on secured bonds, which require up-front cash payments to avoid jail time before trial. More recent reform …

Toward An Optimal Decarceration Strategy, Ben Grunwald

Faculty Scholarship

With mounting support for dramatic criminal justice reform, the question is no longer whether we should decarcerate American prisons but how. This question is far more complicated than it might seem. We could cut the prison population in half, for example, by drastically shortening sentences. Or we could reduce prison admissions. Or we could do both. And we could do either or both for countless combinations of criminal offenses. Moreover, even when they reach the same numeric target, these strategies are not equivalent. They would have vastly different consequences for both prisoners and the public, and widely varying timeframes to …

Modelling Pretrial Detention, Melissa Hamilton

American University Law Review

Pretrial detention has become normative in contemporary criminal justice, rather than the exception to a rule of release for individuals not convicted of any crime. Even the opportunity for release with a bond amount often eludes the many individuals who are unable to afford, to pay. Defendants detained, pending trial suffer numerous negative consequences to their own legal cases, such as being more likely to feel pressured to plead guilty and to receive a prison sentence. The high numbers of those detained appear to disproportionately impact minorities and. have contributed to mass incarceration. As a. result, of these issues, the …

Abolishing The Evidence-Based Paradigm, Erin Collins

Law Faculty Publications

The belief that policies and procedures should be data-driven and “evidence-based” has become criminal law’s leading paradigm for reform. This evidence-based paradigm, which promotes quantitative data collection and empirical analysis to shape and assess reforms, has been widely embraced for its potential to cure the emotional and political pathologies that led to mass incarceration. It has influenced reforms across the criminal procedure spectrum, from predictive policing through actuarial sentencing. The paradigm’s appeal is clear: it promises an objective approach that lets data – not politics – lead the way and purports to have no agenda beyond identifying effective, efficient reforms. …

2021 Rhode Island Public Laws, Madison C. Picard

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Public Interest Law Reporter

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Guilty Until The Check Clears: How Money Bail Incentivizes Wealth And Criminalizes Poverty, Caroline Jarcho

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Nfib V. Osha: Weighing Public Safety Against Non-Delegation, Dean Jepsen

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

A Look At The Inception And Evolution Of The Juvenile Legal System In Illinois, Annie Keller

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Guns For Freedom: An Unlawful Police Tactic In Chicago, Malachy Schrobilgen

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Chicago Is Not A Sundown Town: A Closer Look At Youth Curfews, Nneka Ugwu

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

A Proportionality-Based Framework For Government Regulation Of Digital Tracing Apps In Times Of Emergency, Sharon Bassan

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Times of emergency present an inherent conflict between the public interest and the preservation of individual rights. Such times require granting emergency powers to the government on behalf of the public interest and relaxing safeguards against government actions that infringe rights. The lack of theoretical framework to assess governmental decisions in times of emergency leads to a polarized and politicized discourse about potential policies, and often, to public distrust and lack of compliance.

Such a discourse was evident regarding Digital Tracing Apps (“DTAs”), which are apps installed on cellular phones to alert users that they were exposed to people who …